Forward Flashes
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: A series of flash forwards explores life off the island for the survivors, who bear the weight of a great secret. Feautres Sawyer, Sayid, Kate, Claire, Jin, Sun, Jack, Michael, Desmond, Penelope, and Hurley.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"Now when the evil scientist Yakub created the white race, as I told you before—"

"Shut up, little crackpot short and stout." Sawyer wasn't afraid to insult his cellmate. The man was, indeed, lacking in both height and stature, but even if he had been a mammoth, Sawyer would have had no reason to cower. He had marked a protective circle around himself on his third day in prison, when he had performed that little move he had seen Sayid execute on one of the Others; Sawyer had likewise snapped a fellow inmate's neck.

He hadn't felt the same sense of satisfaction he had seen in Sayid's eyes. There was no aura of war to lend nobility to his actions. Even if the prison was a war zone all its own, there was no community to protect but the community of one. There was no one who would tell him, "Well done," the way Sayid had told Hurley while clapping him on his great, broad shoulder. There was no one who would ask him, "Where did you learn that?" with a hint of awe, the way Bernard had asked Sayid while rising from his knees. There was only the second life sentence that would be added to the first and the reputation he had earned that would keep the other prisoners at bay.

The guard slid his keys forward and inserted them in the lock, the jangling sound somehow audible in the voice-filled quarter. "Ford, you have a visitor."

It would be her again. There was that slight flutter of feeling, somewhere in the far most corner of his heart, that little bit of life. But mostly there was embarrassment. He wished she would not come. He wished she would stop visiting, shut the door finally on that other past, the place where he had once believed he could step forward, but where he had predictably stepped back. In those early days on the island, Sayid had said that hope was a terrible thing to lose; but he had been wrong. Hope was a terrible thing to grasp, a terrible thing to cling to, the one thing that kept the black shame alive, that kept the heart beating in its stone cage. If she'd just stop coming, he could stop believing there was something human in him, and then he would be free.

He picked up the phone on the other side of the glass. He didn't look into her eyes; instead, he looked at his bit-off fingernails at the tips of his dirt-caked hands. It was amazing how filthy he could get in this place, while hardly doing anything at all. "Why do you keep coming?" he asked. "Why you?"

"No one else will visit you," she said, softly, matter-of-factly. "No one else is in Australia. If you had killed a man in the U.S., well, then, perhaps…"

"Claire, you have to stop coming." She had to stop subjecting him to her pity. Her visits nursed just enough of human emotion within him to keep the pain sharp. It was torture, her compassion.

When she only sat silently and continued to look at him with sadness, he sighed. "How's Aaron?" he asked.

She smiled. This he saw and this he hated. It reminded him of the quieter times on the beach, in the beginning, when he would offer her a piece of fish or some freshly plucked fruit, when his hands were clean, and tanned by the bright sun, and cooled in the fresh, open air, when they were extending something other than deceit. Her smiled faltered. It should have been a relief to him, but he felt his heart catch, and the foreign worry for another human being lit off sensors in the back of his brain.

"He's still not walking," she muttered. "He's almost two! He seems happy, but…I'm getting him evaluated again."

The child had developed normally on the island; had hit every milestone ahead of schedule. But once they were in Australia, his progress had slowed dramatically. All this Claire had told Sawyer. He wondered if she had anyone else to tell.

"Do you ever hear from anyone?" he asked, unable to resist conversation, unable to shut himself off in his protective shell. He knew he would suffer for it later, but now, now she was here, and she was beautiful, something to look at besides the gray bricks of the cell he had counted for six hundred and fifty-two nights in a row.

"Sayid hardly ever calls anymore," she said, "since he got married. They keep moving, you know."

"Yeah, you told me."

"I saw Jack once, on a layover. We met at the airport for drinks. It was eleven in the morning, and it didn't look like his first."

Sawyer's teeth, still unusually white, bit at his bottom lip. "So the doc's not still a hero, huh? Spends his days flying the world? Maybe if he's lucky he'll crash, save another heap of wreckage that ain't worth saving."

"Sawyer—"

"Look, Claire, I gotta go. I got things to do, people to see. I'm late for my knitting circle." He slammed the phone on its receiver and pushed back hard from the table. The chair let out a loud scraping sound across the cement floor. He rose, but he couldn't help looking her in the eyes before she turned. Damn it if she wasn't starting to cry. Why did she have to go and do that now? With clenched jaw he turned aside from the tears welling in the deep blue pools of her eyes, but not before he saw her mouth, "I'm coming back. You can't stop me. "


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

The sound of shattering glass came from the dinning room. As Sayid ran in from the living room, Hatim ran out the front door, gun drawn, in search of the sound of squealing tires. Sayid lifted the rock from off the carpet and stripped it of the note that was tightly adhered by a rubber band. This time there was no detailed, four page denunciation. There were only two words: "Infidel Whore." He looked across the hall and up the staircase towards the bedroom, where she was preparing herself for the evening. He put the note and the rock on the table for Hatim to examine, and then he went to get the plywood. He would replace the window this weekend, along with the other one he had boarded up three days ago. Then the house would be ready to sell.

Hatim returned and shook his head. The perpetrator had escaped. Sayid motioned to the rock and note and went back to hammering the sheet of plywood over the entire window. When he heard her footsteps on the staircase, he put down the hammer and turned.

"Are you ready, Hatim?" she asked her bodyguard, before giving Sayid a light peck on the cheek.

"Don't go tonight, Nadia." Sayid wrapped and arm around her waist and pulled her tightly against his chest. "Don't give this speech."

"Don't be ridiculous, Sayid." She kissed him dismissively and pulled herself from his embrace.

"There was another rock, another note, another—"

"I can't let that frighten me away."

"It doesn't have to be you," Sayid insisted. "Why do you always have to pursue some cause? Why can't you just…Just stay home tonight, with me."

"Hatim will be with me. Everything will be fine." She walked to the living room and grabbed her purse from off the end table.

Sayid's hand covered her wrist. "Reconsider. It is growing too dangerous."

She whirled to face him. "What do you want? A white picket fence and 2.5 children?"

It was a hypothetical question, of course, and there was disdain in her voice when she spoke it. Yet he answered nonetheless. "White picket fences are not unattractive," he said. "They have a beautiful symmetry, a quiet presence." He thought for a moment of tent he had once built for Shannon, which for all its simplicity had been intended for more permanency than the bricks and mortar structure he and Nadia now inhabited.

"Sayid," she said, zipping her purse shut with a single, hard tug, "you knew what I was when you married me. These people," she gestured toward the boarded-up window, "they aren't going to stop me from speaking my mind. And neither are you. I've experienced worse things in life than rocks through my windows, if you recall."

"And I helped you escape all that," he said. "For what? For this?"

"We'll find another house, at the end of a cul-de-sac, away from a street—"

"And they'll find you there too." They had already moved three times in the ten months since they had gotten married. "I can't live like this, Nadia." This was worse than waiting to be attacked by the Others. She was his wife, and if he failed to protect her—

"I'm going to be late. I have to meet my publisher for dinner before the speech." Of course she did. In the past eight days, she and Sayid had shared dinner together but once.

She was across the living room now, Hatim fast on her heels. Her hand was on the doorknob.

"Nadia, if you walk out that door now, I can't promise I'll be here when you get back."

She paused. He felt the hope fluttering in his chest, the teasing possibility of a normalcy he had not known since he was a child. Then she turned the knob. "I'm sorry, Sayid."

He watched her leave, watched Hatim trail her to the car, listened to the engine start. Then he made his way slowly up the stairs. He threw himself on the bed first, exhausted by worry, by something else, something more draining that he could not quite name.

He had sought Nadia out as soon as they had returned from the island; he had no definite goal in mind. He wanted to apologize, again, to be assured of her forgiveness. That was all, he thought, but the old admiration had flared once again, and he found a temporary comfort in her companionship, however sporadically she offered it. It had been hard lying about the island, pretending they had crashed somewhere else, deceiving everyone around them. It had been lonely. And Nadia had been assertive and passionate, exciting and willing, and she had sometimes made him forget the great weight of the past, the great burden of the present secret. He had asked her to marry him, not really believing she would accept, not quite daring to hope she would relinquish any part of her independence for him. But she had said yes. He certainly hadn't expected or wanted her to become a complete domesticate, but he had thought…perhaps….

He sat up and swung his legs from off the bed. Wearily, he rested his head in his hands. It was a dreadful thing, to be alone in a foreign world. Even worse, though, was to be with someone and yet still be alone. He rose, walked reluctantly to the closet, and took out a suitcase.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

She blended seamlessly into the L.A landscape, with her blonde hair, dark sunglasses, and the fashionable Baby Bjorn strapped across her chest, sporting the infant as if it were the latest accessory. She mounted the steps to the apartment building—not so fashionable as the Bjorn—with chipping paint around the corner of the front doors, barred windows, and a security system that was not reassuring precisely because it was necessary. She entered the code and let herself in before walking down the front hall.

She stopped beneath the flickering overhead light and inserted her key in the mailbox labeled A. Jones. It was a prop, that mailbox; she never expected to receive anything but advertising flyers and credit card offers, and, for the most part, that was all she did receive. But once a week there would be a letter, hand addressed, always to the wrong pseudonym. Jack couldn't keep up with the name changes, even if he could keep up with the addresses.

She ripped open the envelope and pulled out the college-ruled sheet of paper. It said what it always said. "I'm here if you need me. I'll take care of you. I'll take care of the baby too. – Jack." She did what she always did; she folded it back up, replaced it in the envelope, and proceeded to shred it into tiny pieces over the open trash can.

Then Kate climbed the stairs to her third story apartment and turned on the one living room lamp, which emitted just enough light to see with the blinds closed fast. It wasn't that Jack's offer wasn't tempting. She was more alone than she had ever been in all her years of running. But what were they going to do? She was still a wanted felon.

Once the boat had hit shore, she had found herself locked in another showdown with law enforcement, and Sawyer had helped her to escape, the last act of affection, she supposed, he would ever show her. Sawyer himself hadn't been so lucky, she later learned. He had been arrested in Australia in connection with the past murder of a vendor. Kate couldn't imagine his motive. Perhaps he hadn't required one. She'd always felt alternately drawn to and repelled by him because he was too much a mirror of herself. Now she didn't have to choose whether to gaze or walk away. The choice had been made for her. As for Jack…She wasn't going to ask Jack to run like her, and besides, he would only hold her back, wouldn't he?

She walked past the telephone—another prop. It wasn't connected; she had no service, and she used only a disposable cell, which she changed every one or two months. The only people in the world who had her current number were Jack, Sayid, and Sun.

Sun called once a week. When she did, she would drop hints that she was willing to take the baby off of Kate's hands, to provide a loving, two-parent, and above all a settled family. Kate felt badly for Sun, after all the woman had been through, and she knew her child would be better off without her, that it wasn't fair to insist on keeping it while she remained on the run. Nevertheless, Kate continued to ignore Sun's hints.

Jack called twice a week, drunken and ranting, and always she cut him off after a few sentences. Sayid, oddly enough, called every day, deadly sober and concise. Every time their conversations followed the same precise script:

Kate: Hello, Sayid.

Sayid: How is the baby?

Kate: As well as can be expected.

Sayid: How are you?

Kate: As well as can be expected. How's your wife?  
Sayid: There are threats.

Kate: Still?

Sayid: Yes.

Kate: How are you?

Sayid: I had better leave. Take care.

Every day. The same conversation. Kate tried not to think about why Sayid kept calling to ask the same meaningless questions again and again. No doubt it was for the same reason she kept answering.

Kate unsnapped the Bjorn and placed the baby in its pack n' play. There was no point in buying a crib. She bent down and kissed its brow, whispered, "Nighty, night, Huck," and made her way to the kitchen. She walked past a countertop stacked with baby food and a single loaf of bread. She opened the refrigerator door to reveal the neatly arrayed bottles of formula, a half gallon of milk, a package of sliced ham, and a sole apple. She took the apple and sunk her teeth into its yielding flesh.

When her cell phone rang, she recognized Sayid's number. Mechanically, she answered it and prepared herself to carry out their usual routine to the letter. "Hello, Sayid," she said, but this time, he did not ask, "How is the baby?" Instead, he said, abruptly, "I need a place to stay tonight."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Jin paused in the hallway. He had to walk past the room. It was the only way to get back to his study, where he conducted the routine end of his export business, mostly by haggling on the phone from 6 am to 9 pm, and occasionally by entering numbers into an Excel spreadsheet until his eyes glazed over and his wife stood motionlessly in the doorway, asking mechanically, "Are you coming to bed?"

He sucked in his breath, like he had whenever his net was ripped away by an unexpectedly vigorous tide and he was forced to dive in to recover it. His goal now was less discernable, certainly less noble. He ducked his head and walked quickly past.

"Jin?" Sun's voice rose from somewhere in the room. He pretended not to hear it.

She spent too many hours in that room, arranging the stuffed animals, aligning the trinkets on the dresser, dusting the changing table, folding the blankets, just so. He had wanted to strip away the wallpaper, which had been decorated with lighthouses and ocean waves and friendly, multi-colored fish. He had wanted to box up the dozens of one-piece sleepers, printed with ballerinas, and teddy bears, and bejeweled crowns beneath prophetic claims such as, "Daddy's little princess." He had wanted to paint the walls an antiseptic white, and replace the plush carpet with hardwood, and close the door, and leave it forever closed.

Well-meaning neighbors had told them they could "always try for another," as though a child were a category to be filled and not an individual entity. Even if that had been true, even if Bo-Bae could have been replaced, there was no point in "trying for another," not here, not off the island.

"Jin?" she called again, her voice longing, pleading for something he could not provide in the way that he had once, on the island, provided sustenance and shelter and seed. "Ji—"

He closed the door of the study on the last consonant of the word. He sat in the large swivel desk chair before the monitor's black screen saver and watched as the blood red letters scrolled across in their never ceasing, pointless marquee.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Kate buzzed him in and looked around the bare kitchen, wondering what she would offer him to eat. She almost feared to admit to herself that she was looking forward to the company. It was easier to believe she preferred to be alone.

When Sayid arrived he was bearing two armloads of groceries. "I thought I'd cook for you," he said. "A thank you for giving me a place to…how do you say it…crash?"

In another time and place—on the island, perhaps—she would have laughed twice, once at his uncharacteristic word choice, and once at the thought of him cooking. "_You _cook?" she asked.

"Indeed." He walked past her, glanced left and then right, and, having located the kitchen, went and placed the bags on the countertop. "I used to be a chef." He was looking around the kitchen now. "Where might your cutting board be?"

Kate bit her bottom lip. "Haven't got one. Just use the countertop."

He ran his finger over the surface. "I will inevitably slice it up."

She shrugged. "I'm not expecting my deposit back." There wouldn't exactly be time to examine the checklist, not while she was packing in the dead of night. When the time came to run again, she would take the baby and its gear, and, for herself, nothing but a backpack.

"Tell me you at least have knives."

Kate opened a cupboard and pointed to the knife block, the only item on the four shelves. As Sayid set to work, she went to check on the baby, who was still sleeping contentedly. Huck must have slept at least sixteen hours a day. It was too much at this age, but she wasn't going to try to keep him up. She wished she could sleep that much. Sometimes she wished she could sleep at all.

Kate returned to the kitchen, and to her surprise, Sayid handed her a glass of wine—in an eight ounce water glass, no doubt because that was all he could find. She took it gratefully and began sipping. He did not pour himself a glass, but he added some to a bowl. He looked about at the barren countertops and said, "I fear I am going to have to improvise."

"I haven't had a home cooked meal since…" Kate put down her glass. "Well, since the island."

Sayid's cell phone rang. She watched him retrieve it, look at the number, and answer. She wandered off to give him some privacy, but she could still hear him saying, "No, I am at a friend's apartment now" followed by silence and then "I respect your work. It is honorable. It is also your entire life. We do not have a – " Here he switched to Arabic and spoke more rapidly.

Nadia's cause--speaking out within the Muslim community on behalf of oppressed women--_was _honorable, Kate thought. It was also irrelevant. There wasn't time enough remaining to change the world. Of course, Nadia did not know that, unless Sayid had told her the truth, which Kate very much doubted. If he had, Nadia would have thought him insane, and she never would have married him.

Kate waited until she heard the sound of chopping to return to the kitchen. She didn't ask why he wasn't home with Nadia. She was pretty sure he didn't want to be asked. "You talk to any of the others lately?"

Sayid shook his head.

"Not even Claire? Didn't you use to check in on her pretty regularly?"

"I have not called her for some time. She…was…too kind."

"Mhmmmm," murmured Kate, picking up her wine and swiveling it. The effect, in a water glass, was less than classy. "Not an easy-to-talk-to coldhearted woman like me, you mean," she said.

Sayid was not distracted from his work. He chopped as efficiently and gracefully as he could with the dull blades she had offered him. "She asked too many questions," he replied. "She always wanted to know if I was happy."

"Ah," Kate said, and even though she knew it was better to avoid the topic, she continued, "And you're not." At least it wasn't a question.

"Why don't you sit down? I'll tell you when the meal is ready."

"You know what I don't get, Sayid? You found someone. You can live awhile. So why don't you? Is it impossible, knowing the truth? Is it impossible, even if you have someone to love?" She asked because part of her wanted him to answer no, part of her wanted him to say it _was _possible, part of her wanted him to insist--why don't you call Jack? Why don't you just call Jack right now?

"I do not know whether it is possible. Nadia and I…we want different things."

So it wasn't the burden of the secret, then, that barred even a temporary happiness? "And what do you want?"

Sayid sighed. "I want something that does not exist and never will. Not for me. I want what you want. I want peace."

Kate had never put it to herself in those words. But he was right, wasn't he? There wasn't going to be any peace, not for any of them, not in this life. "Tell me when it's ready," she said and turned and walked from the kitchen.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!" Hurley raised his frothing mug of beer high and with a huge grin brought it down to the lips that seemed almost to disappear between the great bulge of his rosy cheeks.

"Here! Here!" shouted the largely college-aged fledglings around him, who inhaled rather than sipped their alcohol.

When he was done with the mug, Hurley dug into the great repast he had prepared. He thought about Starla , his record store sweetheart, and about how he had once confessed to her that he had always longed to join a fraternity. He had asked her if she had ever joined a sorority, and she had replied, "I prefer not to have to buy my friends." He had laughed then, but not like he was laughing now: wildly, insincerely, loudly enough to drown the truth that was screaming in his mind.

He poured another beer. Kill those brain cells, he thought, kill them one by one, and maybe they'll forget the day Hurley was a hero, the day he rode in on his mighty sky blue chariot, vanquished the enemy, and saved Sayid, Jin, and Bernard—saved them so that they, too, might walk the walk of the condemned every single day of their remaining lives.

Hurley winked hard at a beautiful, young woman who sat across the lengthy, dinning room table. She smiled back at him. Hurley was drunk, but not drunk enough not to notice the partial reluctance in that smile, the fakeness of it all. It didn't matter. She would be drawn to him like a magnet by the end of the evening, after witnessing the great generosity of the host, the food and the entertainment and the fireworks. It was amazing what money could buy.

And then there were the things money couldn't buy. Money couldn't buy time. It couldn't buy love. It couldn't buy the will of the truly pure; still worse, it couldn't even buy the will of the truly evil. Hurley had offered Charles Widmore millions for a ticket off this doomed earth, had offered every dime he possessed for himself and for his island friends. Yet Widmore had laughed and had said that Hurley and the other survivors were not worthy. Perhaps it was only that Widmore was too rich to be tempted, Hurley thought, so he had tried also to tempt Widmore's inner circle. Power was their aphrodisiac, however, and they possessed more secret power than money could ever buy.

So Hurley bought pleasure instead, as much as could be bought. Yet purchased pleasure lasted only a moment, and the silence that followed the revelry was more deafening each time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

The meal was surprisingly good. Kate couldn't remember Sayid cooking on the island. She remembered him occasionally hunting, sometimes skinning, and mostly tinkering and building—but not cooking. It was usually Rose who prepared the communal meals. Perhaps Sayid had thought his talents were more needed elsewhere, and, unfortunately, they were. When it came to confronting the enemy, he had shown an assertiveness Jack had initially lacked and a concern for the community that had never been a priority for Locke. It was ironic how things had turned out. Jack, urged by Sayid to begin acting like a true leader, had done so. He had grown a considerable backbone, and he had defied the persuasions of Ben and Locke to do what he believed to be best for his people. Yet, in the end, his decision had condemned them all. Or at least that was how Jack saw it. Kate suspected that was why he popped those little blue pills, why he tried to drink away the pain. He was wrong, though. Jack's decision hadn't condemned them. They had been condemned long ago. Perhaps if they had remained on the island they could have done something to alter the future, if they had learned the truth, if they had survived the opposition, if they had found the switch, if they could disable it. That was a long list of ifs. Yet Jack, Kate thought, didn't see in hypotheticals, not when looking at himself; he saw everything in black and white: leader or servant, winner or loser, guilty or innocent. He held himself to an inflexible standard he would never use to measure others.

Most of the meal was passed in silence, but then Sayid unpredictably asked, "Have you told Sawyer yet?"

It was a breech of their silent understanding. They weren't supposed to discuss these sorts of things. Of course, she had already violated that code by asking about Nadia. "What?" she asked him. "You think I'm going to write Sawyer a letter in prison, where every word is read by the guards? He helped me escape before I could be arrested. I'm sure they've already questioned him about me a hundred times."

"You could tell Claire. I still have her number, if you desire it. I know she used to visit him. Perhaps she still does. She could say it in some…subtle way the guards would not understand."

Kate picked at her food. "Why? What good is it going to do him?"

"He deserves to know he is a father."

"Knowing would make things worse." Kate stabbed her fork into her salad and crunched the crisp lettuce in silence.

Sayid didn't speak again until Kate began to clear away the dishes, and then he took them from her and insisted that he would wash them. "Sit down, rest," he said.

She sat alone on the living room couch, with the television on but the volume off. She thought about where she would move to next, when the time came. Los Angeles was growing tiresome. She thought New York would suit her tastes better. She assured herself the thought had nothing to do with the fact that Jack was living there.

When Sayid was done, he joined her in the living room. They sat on either end of the couch, watching the TV, the volume turned low so as not to disturb the sleeping baby in its pack n' play on the other side of the room. Sayid was a typical man, Kate thought, as he paged through the channels, never stopping for more than two minutes, always changing the station at the precise moment something began to catch her attention. Now he had landed on a repeat of Gilligan's Island. Gilligan, in his bright red shirt, was engaged in some antic that amused the Skipper. "Have you heard anything about Hurley?" Kate asked.

Sayid shook his head. "I went to one of his parties, before I was with Nadia."

Kate raised an eyebrow. "They're legendary."

"Not to my taste," Sayid replied and switched the channel. Next up was an X-files rerun. This Sayid paused on much longer than usual. Mulder was bent over some piece of evidence, and Scully was hovering dramatically close. The sexual tension was palpable. In a voice that was level, formal, and precise, Sayid said, "He should just nail her and be done with it."

Kate, who had been drinking more wine, sputtered it out of her mouth. "Did _you _just say he should _nail _her?" Despite herself, she was laughing—laughing in disbelief but still laughing.

The corner of Sayid's mouth twitched, ever so slightly, and she knew he had done it on purpose, that he had known the incongruity was the only thing that could lighten the load, if only for a moment. He glanced at her. "You see, you are still capable of smiling." Then he changed the channel.

"Hey, I was just getting interested."

"I have seen that episode four times."

"Four times?" she asked. "You watch a lot of TV, do you?"

"Nadia is rarely home in the evenings. I must do something to fill the time. She always has to meet a publisher, or a cleric, or an editor, or an activist, or a Congressman…And she is forever giving speeches."

"Don't you go to her speeches?"

"I used to. In the beginning. Security insisted I merely got in the way. And…I found myself engaged in a fight once."

"A fight? You mean a fistfight?" This was getting interesting. This was a distraction. Distractions were rare, but they were the lifeline that kept the body moving from day to day.

Sayid nodded. "With an audience member."

"Did he threaten her?"

"No," Sayid answered. "But he said insulting things. He called her names." He switched away from the nightly news, and, having landed on PBS, he put the remote down. "Nadia was displeased."

"I supposed it's hard to look like a respectable feminist when your husband's beating up your audience members."

"Precisely."

They fell silent again, and they watched an hour-long archeology documentary without comment and largely without interest. Towards the end, Kate asked, "Do you think these history fanatics would still be digging up relics if they knew the world was about to end?"

"Why not?" Sayid asked dryly. "We are watching TV."

Kate picked up the remote, extended it toward the mind-drug, and clicked the power off. "Should we be building an ark instead?" Without the glow of the television, the room was dark, and she could barely see Sayid.

"If we could," he said. "If we could do anything…I'm sure we all would."

"But we can't. We can't do a damn thing that will make a difference."

There was nothing but silence for a long time, and Kate wondered if Sayid had fallen asleep, sitting up, the way he once had on the island, leaned against a tree. Then he spoke. "In Iraq," he said slowly, "so many people lived never knowing if they might die the next day. If they might be taken by the government, or blown up by a stray bomb, or even just succumb to some ordinary disease. Still they went on living. On the island, we knew the Others might attack at any moment. Even so, we built. We loved. We played. We stored. We _lived_. Yet this...this is different."

Of course it was. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it was. Kate untucked her legs, which were curled on the couch, and placed her feet on the floor. She rose. "I'll get you a pillow and a blanket."

Later that night, before he had quite drifted off, she came and stood near the end of the couch. "The bed's big enough, if you want," she said.

"I am still married, Kate. For now. And there is no peace in that either."

She looked off into a corner. "That wasn't the offer I was making."

"Oh." He rolled onto his other side, his face hidden against the cushions of the couch. "Nevertheless," came his muffled response, "I do not think it would be appropriate."

She left without a word and crawled into her empty double bed. After awhile, she got up and went to the pack n' play. She picked up the sleeping baby and brought it to bed with her. She kissed Huck's fine, blonde hair and curled on her side against his warm, little body. At length, she slept.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

"Darling, breakfast is ready."

The smell of crisp, fresh bacon mingled with the aromatic, rich coffee and drifted into the elegantly decorated living room where he sat staring blankly at the football scores in the paper. The scent aroused no hunger in him.

"Desmond? I said breakfast is ready."

He could feel Penelope's presence behind him. He could smell the soft fragrance of her shampoo, tinted with hints of mango that reminded him of the island. He knew her beautiful, thick hair would be slightly damp. When they had first been "rescued"—if one could use such a word—and he had been "reunited" with her—if one could use such a word—he had delighted in running his fingers through her hair, in kissing the strands, in burying his face in the tresses and inhaling deeply. Now, however, the thought of touching her inexplicably irritated him. He knew she was not to blame for any of it, and yet, she was the only other person present. It was inevitable, and human, that he should eventually direct his frustrations toward her.

"Darling," she rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently, "breakfast is—"

He wrenched himself from her grasp, rose, and turned to face her. "I can't do this anymore, Penn! I can't pretend that everything is normal! I can't pretend that we aren't prisoners in our own home!"

Her eyes grew glassy and she looked down at the thick, soft, multi-flecked carpet. "What else are we going to do, Desmond? No one even knows we're here."

"How can you stand it, Penn? How can you stand it!" He strode across the living room to the foyer and reached for the knob of the front door.

"Desmond, don't!"

He grasped the doorknob in his hand and froze; his body began quaking wildly. He screamed in pain and let go of the knob, but then he reached for it again. This time he turned it slightly, perhaps a fraction of an inch, before he had to let go and cradle his scorched hand to his chest.

"Desmond, dammint! Stop it! You know there's no way out. You'll only keep hurting yourself."

She ushered him towards the kitchen and turned on the cold water. She stretched out his hand beneath the faucet and he held it there under the running water for a very long time. "I'm sorry, Penn," he muttered at last. "I just…"

There was a loud buzz in the living room, and Desmond turned wearily in the sound's direction. "That would be him," he said, turning off the faucet. "We better go do our duty, have a listen."

Penelope nodded, and they made their way reluctantly to the large monitor across from the living room couch. They sat down and waited for the picture to appear.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

32…33…34…Sawyer lay on his side and counted the bricks in the one solid wall of the cell.

"Lunch," hollered the guard while rapping on the bars with his stick. Sawyer slid off his bunk and lined up.

As they were ushered into the cafeteria, each prisoner took a bright red tray and awaited his noontime fare. The trays had once been a dim gray, like the prison uniforms, but a prisoner had threatened to sue: all of this gray, he claimed, was psychological torture. There was little chance he would win his suit, but the prison system had pre-empted him. Not only had they changed the trays to red, but they had imprinted each one with a large, bright yellow smiley face. Onto this face was dropped a plate, and onto that plate was scooped some indiscernible lump of food. The guards chuckled softly every time they saw one of the smiley face trays. To them, it was a sadistic joke. To Sawyer, it was Kafkaesque. Perhaps tomorrow he would wake up as a dung beetle. He could only hope.

He filed onto the long—still gray—bench and began shoveling the unappetizing grub bite by bite into his mouth.

"Only ten years left," said the short, bald headed, tattooed inmate beside him. "Only ten years."

"World's gonna end before that," said the tall, thin man across from Sawyer. "Bible Code says so. It's right there, imprinted in the Hebrew. They've got computer programs figured it all out. Something about grids and spaces and numbers. Well this one grid, this one grid has the words COMET, SPED, SMITTEN, WHOLE EARTH, ANNIHILATED, ERADICATION…all sorts of words like that, and then the year 2012. "

"No way," said another inmate, wide-eyed and shaking his head. "No way it said that. 2012?"

"Yep. Sure did," replied the tall man.

"No shit? That's when the Mayan calendar stops."

"What?" asked the tall man.

"Yeah, just stops. The Mayans, they were this ancient civilization, right? They drew out a calendar for years and years and years, but they just stopped in 2012."

Sawyer realized he was staring dumbly, and so he dug his fork deeper into his nondescript pile of food. 2012? How the hell did they know that? It was a bizarre coincidence, the way the conspiracy theories converged with reality. There wasn't going to be a comet, though; that's not how it was going to go down.

Sawyer's cellmate, who, despite all his talk of white devils, seemed to follow Sawyer everywhere, said, "I don't believe all this nonsense. Besides, the Mother Ship is circling the earth right now, and it can't be detected by radar. Brother Fard said so. And if white America dares to harm my people, that Mother Ship will come--"

"Yeah, the Mother Ship's gonna come all right," Sawyer interrupted. "Or rather leave. But I doubt your name's on the list."

His cellmate fell unusually silent. "What are you talking about?" he asked at last.

"I have a religion, too," said Sawyer. "Only I hate my god."

His cellmate dropped his fork and stared at him. "You fancy yourself Lucifer? You want to rebel against Allah?"

"Nah," Sawyer drawled. "Lucifer was just some guy from Minnesota named Ben. He offered Richard and the gang forbidden fruit, and they did take, and they did eat."

"From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?"

"Something like that." Sawyer took a slurp of water from his gray cup. "Told them they could be just like their god, told them they could take a submarine to the heavens, told them they could be fruitful and multiply." Sawyer slammed his cup on the table. Everyone was listening to him now; some with bemused expressions, some with crazed fascination. "Except, problem was, they couldn't multiply. See, their god, unlike yours, didn't want them to. Their god just wanted them to guard Eden, keep it safe from the world, until the Mother Ship was complete, until the list of the worthy was compiled, until he was ready to send the Great Deluge." It was going to be an explosion, actually, but deluge sounded better--Sawyer liked the way the archaic word rolled slowly off his tongue--and besides, there would no doubt be flooding as a result, so that those who lived beyond the blast radius would be drowned in the wake.

They had all promised to be silent. They had all promised not to give Charles Widmore a reason to destroy the earth ahead of schedule, to leave with a ship half full before he was done making his list and checking it twice. Even if that fear had not closed their lips, the knowledge that they would be disbelieved and institutionalized had. Widmore had known there was no motivation to speak, of course; if he had thought otherwise, he would have killed them all. Often Sawyer wished the man had.

Locke had been the lucky one, Sawyer thought now. They had all believed John Locke was mad when he fled the rescue boat, when he leapt into the ocean and swam wildly toward the shore, only to be consumed by the waves. They had not known then what they knew now, what they had learned on that long boat ride back to freedom, back to slavery. Had they known, perhaps they all would have plunged into the dark green depths of the ocean.

Yes, Sawyer had promised to stay silent, but it didn't matter what he said to _these _people. It would all be buried in the sea of nonsense the prisoners spewed day in and day out in a pathetic effort to entertain themselves.

His cellmate squinted his eyes and asked, "And what happened to Ben?"

"He was cast down, of course," smirked Sawyer.

His cellmate shook his head slowly from side to side. "You white southerners sure come up with some strange religions."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Jack's fingers caressed the shot glass that contained the amber liquid. He brought it shakily to his mouth and sipped it in one, long motion. Exhaling slowly, he returned the glass to the table. "I don't think anyone is prepared to accept your apology, Michael."

"I know," said the man, slumping still deeper into the corner booth, his face masked in the shadows of the dimly lit bar. "You were the only one who would even meet with me."

"You shot two of us. You betrayed us all. You believed a lie, and then you left us bound and blindfolded and kneeling on the dock." Jack spat out the words, but then he shrugged. "Now we're all the same, aren't we? We're all living the same lie."

Michael leaned forward into the light. "I can't live it anymore."

Jack raised his eyes to meet Michael's desperate expression. Here sat a man who had once been a builder, who had assisted the community with pipelines and water. Now he was broken, and childless, and drowning himself in remorse instead of liquor. Jack thought the loss of Walt probably would have been a less bitter pill to swallow if the boy hadn't desired his fate, if he hadn't chosen to be chosen.

Jack had seen Michael's face when the boy had called Charles Widmore "Dad." He had seen the last of Michael's spirit broken. Jack felt for Michael. Just because Walt's mother had been one of a hundred pregnant women upon whom Widmore's scientists had once secretly experimented, just because their mad machinations had produced the boy's special gifts – that didn't make Widmore Walt's father. Yet Widmore understood Walt's giftedness in a way Michael never could.

Michael, Jack new, had been offered an opportunity to join Widmore, an opportunity to leave this doomed Earth. It was a concession the businessman had made on Walt's behalf. Yet Michael, torn with guilt for his own betrayal of the survivors, and his heart ruptured by the disloyalty of his son, had declined. He now lived under an assumed name, so that, he told Jack, Walt would not attempt to track him down and persuade him to join Widmore's project. He was afraid he would not have the strength to resist the invitation a second time.

Thus Michael was, of his own free will, resigning himself to the same fate as his one time compatriots. It was a useless penance, but it was one Jack would have assigned himself. Jack understood Michael's regret, even if his own fatal choices had been made with purer intentions. If only he had not called that boat, Jack thought again, they would all still be on the island; they would, perhaps, have learned the truth while they could still do something about it.

"You can't say anything," replied Jack. "You know that. Who would believe us? And if it began to look like we might be believed….Widmore…Michael, that island," he stabbed a finger on the table, "that island holds the power to destroy the entire world, and Widmore holds the island." Jack shook his head. "If he needs to, he'll just leave early and push the button. "

"We have to get back there," insisted Michael, but weakly, without the assertiveness his voice had housed, in those early days, when he had vowed to find his kidnapped son.

Jack let out a broken, almost maniacal laugh. He ran a hand over his growing beard. "How? And do what?"

"Gain control, disable it somehow…." Michael leaned back again against the booth, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Save the world," he ended sarcastically.

"Yeah," Jack said. "Save the world."

As impossible, as ridiculous, as asinine as that idea seemed, there was a small part of Jack's still-breathing soul that was stirred by the words. Hadn't the improbable task, once tackled, worked a miracle before? Yet surgery was nothing compared to finding an island that was nearly impossible to find, and then locating and destroying the equipment that could ignite a blast large enough to destroy the world, and doing it all without the notice of Widmore or any of the people that had been created to protect the place.

Dharma had found the island once, and so had Penelope….Yet every last member of Dharma, save Ben, had been eradicated by the manipulations of that ageless, manufactured being Richard who had sprung from the womb of Widmore Labs. Penelope had located the island with devices that were now no doubt denied to her and that would never be accessible to Jack.

Charles Widmore had played the absent god too long; his little island had spiraled out of control. The beings his father's scientists had manufactured and programmed to protect the place had created a society of their own, a religion of their own. Widmore had not known of their attempts to reproduce, or that they had recruited real human beings to live among them and aid them. Yet Widmore would play the absent god no longer. There was no chance, now, of finding him and wresting from him the unholy power that he wielded. There was no chance of any of the survivors doing anything but pressing mechanically through life, building futures they had no hope would last, or, still worse, _not _building them.

Jack rose from the booth. He staggered and braced himself, his palms flat against the table. "It's not that I haven't thought of what you've said. I keep flying…I keep trying to get back there. I have absolutely no hope of accomplishing anything. But if I could at least die trying…"

_If I could at least die. Period_, he thought. Then the nothing he had become would be swept into the nothing that was the universe. He had led, he had healed, he had freed, and for what? For nothing. For a few more years of meaningless life. For a few individuals who were relegated to living in a world that had become a stranger to them. For a woman who had rejected his love because she could never accept herself. For a profession that had disowned him.

"I need another drink," he muttered as he stumbled toward the bar.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

The monitor flickered three times before the picture focused. As a man who owned eighteen laboratories, five industries, and an island possessed of spectacular powers, Charles Widmore certainly could have repaired the quirk. Yet he liked the way the screen heralded his presence, bit by bit, allowing his audience time to adjust, time to prepare themselves to receive his words.

"Hello, Princess," Widmore announced.

He could see, through the camera mounted to the top of the monitor in the living room, that Penelope's eyes burned with disgust. Yet still she said, if only reflexively, "Hello, Daddy."

He smiled to hear the word. However deeply she had betrayed him, Widmore still loved his daughter; he still hoped for Penelope's enlightenment, which would be followed by her devotion to both him and the project.

In raising her, he had imputed to her his sense of ambition and courage and curiosity. For bedtime stories, he had read to her the myths of Prometheus and other great men of his ilk, eventually graduating to the novels of Ayn Rand. He had attempted to instill in her a thirst for justice, yet she had somehow been weakened by the pull of senseless mercy. She had given her heart to a man who did not deserve it, and then she had pursued Desmond with her relentless love long after he had abandoned her.

"Now, now, dear," Widmore said in a scolding tongue. "Why are you always so unpleasant during our little check-ins? Haven't I given you everything you ever wanted? Don't you have your dream house? I'm even consenting to let you amuse yourself with that little…" He waved a hand dismissively in the air…"boy toy of yours."

Widmore was certain Penelope would tire of Desmond in time, that she would see how insufficient he was when forced to pass every second of every minute of every hour with him. Then she would long to join her father's project, and she would choose as a husband one of the great men of the new colony, one of the scientists, perhaps, or one of the architects. Possibly she would choose the winner of his race around the world, who as a prize had been given a ticket off this Earth. Widmore simply had to be patient. She would come around. Yes, at first, she had resisted tuning into his lectures, she had refused for several days to appear before the monitor; but he had cut off all power and water to the house, and, in time, the discipline had made her heed him. Now, when Widmore summoned, Penelope and Desmond sat.

"It's a shame," Widmore said, focusing his eyes now on Desmond, "that he won't be able to join us when the ship leaves. He just isn't worthy of you, Penelope. In time you'll understand that. You will have a host of the best and brightest men to choose from when we reach the colony."

"I won't be going to your colony, father."

"Now, now, Penelope," Widmore tsked. "You rebelled against me once. You persuaded some of my people to locate the island for you. Surely you do not wish to wound your poor father again?"

In his youth, Charles Widmore had ascended to power within the family business and had taken over his own deceased father's grand project. He had trained Penny from her birth to be prepared to fulfill the mission in the event of his death. He had not told her the whole truth, but he had groomed her for her calling, and when her one great weakness—Desmond—had finally vanished from her life, Widmore had revealed to her the existence of the project. He expected she would embrace the vision as had he, as had his father before him. Instead, she had betrayed him.

When Penelope usurped his tracking equipment and disappeared with it for weeks, he assumed she had located the island and was exploring it. Penelope's sole goal, her father knew, was to thwart his plans. Neither had any idea Desmond had found his way to the island's shores. So Widmore sent a search party to look for her, equipping them with a photograph he had taken from her flat. It irked him excessively that Desmond was present in the shot, that she had kept that photo years after the Scotsman had weakly left her, just as Widmore had known he would. He thought to cut Desmond out of the photograph, but in the end he did not bother; he handed it intact to his search team and ordered them to locate his daughter.

The search party Widmore sent in pursuit of his daughter was the same group he had paid to stage a crash site for Oceanic 815. He had wanted to prevent any further private or governmental searches for the airplane, fearing that the island might eventually be discovered by chance. Naomi had been a good girl; she had adhered to the story even when events had made evasion difficult. She was a quick thinker; she improvised as circumstances required. When she unexpectedly discovered Desmond instead of Penelope, she did not expose Charles Widmore's hunt for his daughter; instead, she claimed to have been hired by Penelope to search for Desmond. Yes, she was a good girl, Widmore thought. Had she lived, she would have been among the chosen.

Only after Jack contacted the boat and Widmore returned to his island did the businessman learn how far astray Ben had led his company's creations. Charles Widmore's father had attempted to deal with Dharama's discovery of the island by merging with the Hanso Foundation. The Dharma scientists, however, nevertheless continued to pursue their own irrelevant goals, and they had set 2006 as the deadline for compiling their research, after which they intended to go public about the island. Widmore's ship, however, would not be complete until 2012. When his father died, therefore, Charles Widmore chose a different approach: he ordered Richard and the other manufactured beings to dispose of Dharma, to eliminate them utterly before the 2006 deadline. Yet Richard defied his command and spared Ben.

Widmore had thought his creatures would fulfill their programming, and they did send him messages whenever a plane or a boat crashed, always claiming to have eliminated the intruders. Widmore never dreamed the lab creations would develop very human longings or that they would lie to him to pursue their own goals of reproduction. They had not only kept Ben alive, but, at his suggestion, they had traveled to the outside world to secure assistance from a fertility specialist, a woman whom the Others kept in the dark about their true origins. Juliet had thought it was the island's environment that slew pregnant women; she had never imagined that her captors were limited instead by their inhuman nature, so closely did they resemble humans. She never knew they had spared the survivors of Oceanic 815 only so that they might serve as test subjects or, failing that, as breeders for a new generation of children to be taken and raised by the Others. Instead, Juliet had attempted to save Sun from a fate that did not await her, while the Others futilely hoped her fertility experiments could teach them enough about human reproduction to surmount their own programming.

When he learned the truth, Widmore re-programmed his creations and executed Ben. He had wanted to kill all of the survivors of Oceanic 815 as well, but Penelope, who had recently learned Desmond was on the island, had by now contacted her father's boat, and she begged him to spare Desmond and the plane's survivors.

Since they were no longer on the island, the survivors could no more pose a threat to Widmore's project. They could not locate the island alone, and, if they told their story, no one would believe them. It would be thought they were suffering some collective psychosis as a result of the crash, and they would be institutionalized. So Widmore had offered his princess this one gift: he had released the survivors back into the world, he had told the media that while most of the passengers had died in the ocean, these few had floated to safety on another island, and Widmore Enterprises, as one of its many acts of philanthropy, had discovered and rescued them. Then Charles Widmore reclaimed the unique tracking equipment from Penelope and, in order to teach her a much needed lesson, imprisoned her and Desmond in this residential palace.

"I used to think the island was nothing but a bedtime story," Penelope said. "I knew you were a ruthless businessman, but I never dared to think you were so thoroughly evil."

"Penelope, Penelope, my dear, little Penelope," cooed Widmore, "you simply do not understand. It is this world that is so thoroughly evil. Haven't you seen it? The pointless wars, the murderers, the thieves, the rapists, the drunkards," he refocused his gaze on Desmond, "the uncommitted, the lazy? Yet now we have the opportunity to start over, to do away with all of the foul rankness of the earth, to select only the best and begin anew!"

Desmond, who was usually silent during these discussions, now screamed, "And who are you to choose them!"

Widmore's eyes did not quite roll; they barely moved. The effect, however, was the same. "I am the man with the means, Desmond, because I am an innovator. A creator. A re-creator. The type of man you will never be." And then Widmore spoke the words he always spoke to end each and every call: "You will never be a great man, Desmond."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

"Thank you, Sayid. I didn't know who else to turn to in L.A. They know my tags now, and if I stole a car…"

Sayid drove slowly on the unlit country road, the high beams piercing the heavy, natural darkness with their artificial and temporary light. Through the rearview mirror, he could see Huck's light blue eyes staring into the portable, decorative mirror Kate had attached to the back headrest so that the child's face could be seen. Huck was fascinated with his own reflection, and, in that moment, he reminded Sayid very much of Sawyer.

"Yes," Sayid replied. "I would certainly prefer you not do that, and I myself could benefit from the distraction of a road trip."

That was true, especially now that his marriage had decisively disintegrated. After he had been apart from Nadia for a week, he had begun to feel guilty for walking out on her. At about the same time, she had called him to say she missed him, that she was sorry for taking him for granted, and that she wanted him back in her life. He had returned with a determination to cherish his last years on earth, to cherish her. For a time, it seemed possible. She continue to pursue her cause but in safer venues—she stopped giving speeches but interviewed on talk radio; she continued to write her books and articles, but she did not promote them herself, and she worked from home, so that she could spend more time with Sayid. She cut down on the dinner meetings and instead conducted networking luncheons while Sayid himself was at work. They made love almost nightly, and for a while he thought that her companionship might be enough to make him happy.

Yet one night, when he lay with her in his arms, her naked flesh pressed tightly against his, he felt suddenly overwhelmed by the distance between them. He could not share with her his deepest wounds, his greatest fears, his most constant thoughts. The weight she had once lifted with her forgiveness, the weight of his past sins as a torturer, was the burden of another lifetime. He could never speak to her of those things that chained his spirit now, and so she could never truly know him.

He resigned himself to that emptiness; he resolved to remain in the marriage however great the weight of loneliness. He would be alone with that weight, he reasoned, wherever he lived, so he might as well enjoy the occasional relief her vigor, her intelligence, her wit, and her body offered him. Above all, he thought, he should honor his vows. Yet Nadia sensed his aloofness, and she pressured him for greater intimacy. He offered what he could, but because he could not offer up the secret, he remained detached. In the end, she was the one to leave.

Sayid felt Kate glancing at his profile. He knew he hadn't shaved in awhile. His beard was becoming a tangled forest of dark hair, with the occasional, recalcitrant silver strand. He had groomed better on the island, in the middle of that perpetual, mysterious war zone.

"You look good," she said.

He turned his eyes slowly, doubtfully, in her direction.

She laughed. "You look like crap, actually."

He turned his eyes back to the road, but he could still feel her looking at him. To remove her gaze, he said, "Will you be staying with Jack in New York?"

It worked. Her eyes moved abruptly to the road ahead. "I thought I'd be staying with you," she said.

"And why did you think that?"

"You were planning to stay in New York, weren't you? Or are you just taking me and returning to L.A.?"

"There is nothing for me in L.A.," he answered, "but then there is nothing for me in New York either. I do not know what you think I can give you, Kate, that Jack cannot."

"I'm not looking for a lover, Sayid, just a roommate."

"Jack could serve as both, if you would let him."

"He can't stay sober for more than fifteen minutes."

Sayid turned off the bights as a lone car approached on the horizon. When it had passed, he flicked them back on. "And you do not think that would change if you lived with him?"

"It's not just that," Kate said. She draped her arm out the open window. "It's complicated."

Everything was complicated with Kate, wasn't it? When they had lived on the island, Sayid had thought Kate was playing Sawyer and Jack off of one another, like a coquettish schoolgirl, to win their affections. With time, he realized she wasn't trying to extort their love, but to avoid it. He could never guess which one she preferred, but he knew she preferred to be without an anchor. Yet it was hard to drift the vast ocean of the world alone, and perhaps that was why she wanted to live with him. He was not a threat. He wasn't going to fall in love with her. "Perhaps I will stay with you in New York," he said. "I could profit from the company as much as you."

"I never said I needed company. Just someone to share the rent."

"Yes, of course," Sayid replied, clinching his lips to cut off the smile, "just someone to share the rent."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

"Come on, come on, you're almost there, you can do it!" Claire encouraged Aaron, but her voice did not hold the excitement of a mother watching her child take his first, expected steps. There was a desperation in her tone, a frustration, and a sadness. The specialist had told her that Aaron's development was delayed, but it could not be determined why. The boy should have taken his first steps by now, but he could barely crawl, and he had only this week begun to pull up to a standing position. Even now, he made no effort to move in Claire's direction, but stood clinging to the coffee table for dear life, his feet shaking beneath him, his grip loosening, until he slipped and fell hard on his padded bottom.

When Aaron landed with a thud, Claire did not say, "Ooops, boom boom" as she normally did. Instead she slapped her hands flat on her knees and cried, "Why can't you just be normal?" The sob that rose to her throat only made the should-be toddler laugh. At least he could do that.

Claire felt the weight of single motherhood, she felt the concern of a mother whose child is not developing properly, but—far worse than any of that—she felt an oppressive guilt. She felt guilty because some small part of her was glad the world would end in 2012, glad that she would not live to see Aaron's body age while his mind remained infantile, glad she would not have to change a school-age child's diapers, glad she would not have to support an adult child.

On the island, she had been willing to do anything for Aaron. She had hiked through the humid, haunted jungle following the trail of only a hope to bring back medicine. And he had grown happily, normally, healthily then. By now, if they had still been on the island, he might even be running, perhaps swinging in a swing Sayid had built him. Sayid would have liked to construct such a set, Claire thought; it would have kept his hands busy; it would have satisfied his need to be productive. Perhaps Sun's child would have swung there too, right beside Aaron, instead of resting in a grave on the other side of the ocean, a victim of SIDS.

There was nothing Claire could do here, however, no medicine she could bring Aaron, no enemy she could save him from but the enemy of a nature she had no power to fight. There was nothing she could do but watch him grow and yet not grow.

Claire took three deep breaths, steadied her emotions, and tried not to cry again when Aaron's unsuspecting smile spread across his innocent face. She scooped him up in her arms and kissed his little head. "Come on, we're going to the sitter's. Mummy has to pay a visit."

She hadn't been to the prison in weeks. She'd kept her promise to keep coming, but Sawyer had grown increasingly distant. He stopped asking about the other survivors, stopped doing anything at all but sitting and starring off to the left. She had talked, mindlessly, endlessly, but he had not responded. Today, however, she had resolved that she had been wrong to give up on Sawyer, just as she would be wrong to give up on Aaron.

When she reached the prison, however, and began to follow the procedures for visitation, the guards looked at her suspiciously. "You don't know?" one said. "You didn't hear?"

"Hear what?" she asked.

"Prisoner James Ford escaped Tuesday night, in the midst of a prison riot, along with two other prisoners."

Claire's mouth dropped open. It took her a moment to process the information. Her first thought was to wonder if he had killed anyone in the process. She felt badly for leaping to the assumption, but it was not an unrealistic possibility. Her next feeling was one of relief; she would no longer be obligated, by her sense of compassion, to continue visits that had become painful to her, that had reminded her only of the impossibility of returning to happier times, to a time when Sawyer had seemed to start down a path of reformation, only to turn aside in the end.

As the only visitor Sawyer had ever received, she was subjected to questioning. The interrogation did not last long, however; her innocence was more obvious to them than to herself. As she left the prison, she wondered where Sawyer would flee, if he would seek out Kate, if he would find a brief moment of happiness in her arms, if he would become the man Claire had once dared to hope he could be, or if he would simply go on living the life of a fugitive, stealing where he could, and dying in the world-consuming flames that could never purge his sins.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

The monitor flickered three times before Widmore's image appeared. Desmond sat beside Penelope, holding her hand for support. This past week, they had somehow managed not to argue with each other more than once a day; they had somehow found pleasure in one another's touch, but now here they were again, forced to appear routinely before the altar. When Penny answered with her habitual, "Hello, Daddy," Desmond cringed. He knew the word dripped with disdain when she spoke it, but still he hated that she spoke it. He did not wish to be reminded that she shared any part of her DNA with that man.

The conversation passed as it usually did, until, abruptly, Penelope rose from the couch and walked to the kitchen. Her father called after her through the monitor, demanding that she return. She did return, but she returned with a sharp kitchen knife. Desmond's eyes narrowed with confusion, but they grew wide with fright when she took the knife to her own wrist and drew the slightest drop of blood. "Penny!" he cried. "Penny what are you doing?"

"Turn off the electrical fence," she insisted, staring at her father's image. Desmond saw in her eyes a mirror of the determination that shone from her father's eyes, and he saw, too, a small hint of that same madness. She dug the knife deeper into her flesh, drawing more than a drop this time. "Turn it off or I'll slit my wrists."

"Penelope, darling…"

The cut went deeper this time, enough to make her cry out, enough to make Widmore's face grow ashen. He attempted to reason with her, as did Desmond, who was too concerned with her safety—too overwhelmed by the sight of her bright, wet blood—to assist her plan. He saw in her eyes that she was not bluffing; she would kill herself, and if the process did not persuade her father to yield, it would at least put an end to her own misery.

When Widmore saw how deeply the knife was cutting, he said, "Tell Desmond to leave."

Penelope nodded to him, and Desmond reluctantly heeded her command. She had proved trustworthy over the oceans and across the years; he must trust her now. He sat nervously in the kitchen, drumming his fingers against the fine oak table, biting at his lip, and simply waiting. At last, she summoned him.

Desmond walked into the living room and found the monitor had gone black. Penelope was standing by the front door. "Come, darling," she beckoned him. And when he stood beside her, she kissed him deeply, with more passion than she had kissed him in many months. And while she kissed him, she opened the door; she opened it without struggle, without pain. Still kissing him, she backed him through the door to freedom, but then she drew away, and Desmond felt a sudden chill that bespoke more than the loss of her warm lips. "I'm sorry," she said. "This is the only way you can be free, even if only for a short time."

His mouth dropped open in confusion, and when he realized what she was about to do, it was too late. She had shut the door.

He grabbed at the knob to open it again, but it was locked, and soon enough, it was activated. Every time he threw himself at the door he was seared, and he could hear her beginning from the other side, "Stop, Desmond, please stop." Finally he did, and he listened to her through the door. "I have to let you go, Desmond. We could never be happy here. I could not stand to see you…I could not bear…it was the only way he would let you go… "

"Penelope, then let me stay, let me stay with you," he shouted through the door, but no matter how long and loud he shouted, she did not answer.

At length, his throat hoarse, his palms burned, and his head aching from exhaustion, he walked. He walked for miles before he reached a town, and then he told the constable there of the woman trapped within her own house, and the constable laughed, and offered him directions to the nearest nuthouse. So Desmond gathered tools on his own, explosives and other devices he would use to free his damsel in distress, but when he returned, the house had been leveled and lay in ruins on the ground.

Penelope, who had promised always to be there, had left a final farewell note nailed with a stake into the soot-caked grass. "I'm sorry, Desmond," it read. "I will always love you, but I have to go. You will not be able to find me. Live, if only for a short while. Live while you still can."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

After Kate and Sayid settled into their New York apartment, Sayid informed Jack of their proximity and invited him to dinner. He did not tell Kate they were having a guest until an hour before the meal, and she responded to Sayid's announcement with an irritated glare, saying, "What are you now? Soldier turned matchmaker?"

"Kate," Sayid said, "Juliet died a week after we reached America. His ex-wife will have nothing to do with him. He has been cast out of his profession. He is utterly alone. "

Kate knew that, of course, and she wasn't entirely insensitive to Jack's loneliness. Part of her wanted literally to reach out to him, to cradle his bent and weary head against her breast, to try to revive some of the emotion she had once allowed herself to feel for him, an emotion that was vastly different but equally threatening as the one she had felt for Sawyer. Yet the older, more natural part of her simply wanted to run. Sayid had made that difficult, however, and so she resigned herself to the meeting.

When Jack arrived, he appeared to be sober. He was well dressed; his beard was trimmed; he seemed to have made a sincere effort to prepare himself for the occasion. Sayid did not serve alcohol with the meal, and he ate quickly. When he had shoveled the last bite into his mouth, he announced that he needed to take Huck for a walk in the stroller, which of course he did not, not at eight in the evening, Huck's usual bedtime. Kate opened her mouth to prevent him, but Sayid had already risen and walked away from the table. The Iraqi lifted the child from where he sat on the floor playing listlessly with plush foam blocks. In an instant, Kate was alone with Jack.

"So," Jack said, his voice wounded and accusing, "you and Sayid are sharing an apartment."

"Yes."

"Are you also sharing a bed?"

Kate, who had been examining her plate, jerked her head upward to look him in the eyes. "If that were any of your business, I would tell you."

"Fine." Jack stabbed violently at a piece of chicken.

Kate sighed. "No," she said. There was no reason to encourage him, but there was also no reason to provoke him. "No, we're not. We're just…friends." It sounded strange to call Sayid that. He _was _more than a roommate, but he wasn't the sort of friend you called up on a Friday night to suggest catching a flick. He was the sort of friend you met in the trenches, who stood silently beside you while the bullets reigned overhead.

Jack abruptly changed the subject. "I saw Michael. He wants to meet with the rest of you and apologize."

"Does he?" Kate asked as she pushed the food about her plate with her fork.

"He said we need to get back to that island, and I've been thinking…he's right."

Kate snorted. "How are we going to do that, Jack? It's virtually invisible. Only Widmore knows for certain where it is. Even Desmond's girlfriend said she found it more by chance than because of the equipment, which we can't get a hold of anyway. There's no point — " Kate dropped her fork with a sudden clang against her plate. "Jack, you're bleeding!" The alarm, the genuine concern in her voice, surprised even her.

Jack reached instinctively for his ear, and the tips of his fingers touched the sticky blood that was pooling out of it. He rose and went to the kitchen sink and began washing the blood away. "It happens sometimes," he said. "I've been flying a lot. I've read it sometimes happens to TSA agents, too."

Kate helped him, dabbing a soft clothe on his ear. Jack closed his eyes as if savoring her touch. He reached up and slid the cloth from out of her hand. The bleeding had stopped. He pressed her hand against his rough, prickly cheek. For a moment she allowed him to, but when he turned his face and leaned in and pressed his lips desperately, demandingly against hers, she pushed him away.

It was too overwhelming. How could she entangle herself with a man whose burdens were greater than her own? "Leave, Jack," she whispered. "Leave and don't call me again."

"Kate, please—"

She refused to look at him. No longer whispering, she insisted, "I said leave."

When Sayid returned an hour later, Kate heard him open the door slowly, cautiously, as if afraid to intrude upon a lover's tryst.

"No need to tiptoe," Kate called. "He's gone."

"Already?" Sayid ask, glancing around the apartment.

"There's no point, Sayid," Kate said. "There's no point in any of it." She crossed the living room to her bedroom and slammed the door behind herself, leaving Sayid alone in the entryway with an umbrella stroller and a slumbering Huck.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

Claire smiled at Aaron's smile. A warmth flooded her senses, a bitter-sweet tenderness that grew like a tangled vine around her heart. She could do this. She could make the last of her time on earth meaningful by pouring out of her spirit the unconditional love of a mother.

Aaron, at once her fear and her consolation, was her only companion in a world that seemed unreal to her, because the people in it pressed on with their petty concerns and pitiful plans. So when Desmond called and said he was in Australia, she had invited him over immediately.

She thought perhaps that Desmond, alone of all the survivors, had found a lasting happiness. Claire had seen him reunited with Penelope, had witnessed the joy and gratitude overflowing in his eyes while she herself stood alone, keenly aware of the immense absence of Charlie. It was with a mixture of gentle concern and a guilty desire for shared suffering that she learned he would be visiting her alone.

"So that's the story," concluded Desmond, setting down the coffee cup she had poured him, which he had drained in five nervous sips. "I contacted you because you were the only one of the survivors whose number I could find on the Internet. Everyone else is entirely unlisted. Are you in touch with anyone?"

She told him Hurley was in Los Angeles, throwing legendary parties, that Rose had begun chemotherapy, and that Bernard was constantly tending to her. She said that she had heard from Sayid recently, that he was living in New York, and that he could assure her Kate was alive and well. She told him Sawyer had escaped prison, and that she knew nothing of his whereabouts. She related that Michael had contacted her but that she would not meet with him. Libby had helped her in a time of need, and even Claire's kind heart could not quite forgive the man for his crime.

"I wish there was something I could do to help," said Claire. "What do you think happened to Penelope?"

"Widmore probably has her trapped somewhere until the ship leaves. Then he'll bring her to the colony." Desmond's hand wrapped tightly around the coffee cup. "At least she'll be spared." Claire refilled his cup for him, and he took another sip, more slowly this time. "I tried to find her. I tried for weeks…It was useless." He shrugged. "Even if I did, the time we would have—"

"I know," said Claire softly. "I know. At least you had some time. You can cherish that memory, can't you?" She knew the answer to the question; she knew the joys of the past did not feed the hunger of the present. When she thought of Charlie—and these days she struggled to think of him as seldom as possible—it was always with a pang for what was and for what might have been.

"Sure," muttered Desmond. "Sure." Claire thought he said it to offer her, and not himself, comfort.

"There's a spare bedroom," she said, "if you'd like to stay awhile. In fact, stay as long as you like. Stay until the end of the world if you want."

He laughed, a light, unexpected sound that reminded Claire of those intermittent moments of community and happiness on the island, and which brought an equally unforeseen smile to her lips.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

Neither Sayid nor Kate worked many hours; there was no future to save for: no house for which to accumulate a down payment, no college for Huck, no retirement. Kate worked mornings as a waitress in a diner, Sayid a few nights a week as a chef. That, along with the remainder of Sayid's settlement from Oceanic (a settlement Kate, obviously, had not lingered long enough to claim), was enough to cover food, shelter, clothing, utilities, and the occasional vapid entertainment. They shared household responsibilities, cared for Huck together, and, in the evenings, sat on the couch from 10 to 12 reading, watching TV, and occasionally talking. It was a comfortable arrangement. Except for the lack of sex, it was rather like a marriage, right down to the occasional, mild bickering.

They were bickering now, in fact. Kate had just returned from work to find Sayid sitting on the couch with Huck in his lap; both were staring robotically at the brightly colored objects floating across the screen.

"You're letting him watch that baby crack again?" she asked.

"He likes it. It soothes him when he is disgruntled."

"You know, some pediatricians think watching this stuff leads to ADHD."

Sayid tore his attention away from the screen long enough to glance at her. He was better groomed now; he looked as handsome as she had remembered him looking during those early days on the island, but there was a weariness in the soft pools of his dark eyes that seemed ever present. "ADHD?"

"Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," she mumbled before flopping down on the couch.

"Does that mean he will have difficulty remaining settled?" Sayid asked. "Somehow I do not think he will require Baby Einstein videos to learn that."

"Touché. One hit for you."

Neither of them spoke the more obvious, darker truth: Huck would not live to develop ADHD; he would not even live to enter kindergarten. Yet instead of saying this, both stared at the random objects making their way slowly across the screen.

Later that night, when Huck was sleeping, and they sat on their usual ends of the couch, Kate, without thinking—simply because Sayid's presence had become routine, simply because it seemed a natural thing to do—slid down to his side of the couch and laid her head against his shoulder. She did not even realize she had done it until he startled and stiffened. She was about to pull away when she felt his muscles relax, and then he dropped his arm down around her shoulder. Neither said a word, but they sat like that for the next hour, until a sudden knock at the door sent Sayid reflexively reaching for the gun he was not carrying. Steadying himself, he looked cautiously at the door, and then at Kate. Kate's expression was one of obvious concern. She and Sayid didn't have visitors.

Kate rose from the couch and rummaged in her purse. She took out a handgun and began to walk towards the door. Sayid grabbed her arm to stop her and took the gun from her hand. "I had better," he said.

"Sayid, you don't owe me—"

"Allow me, Kate," he insisted, and she relented, not because she couldn't do it on her own, and not because she thought she deserved to be protected by him, but because he so obviously needed to do it, to do something, anything.

Kate stepped back into the shadows, near enough to the pack n' play that she could scoop up the sleeping baby and run if she needed to, but still close enough to see the door. Sayid held the gun ready and peered through the peephole. Every muscle in his body seemed taut beneath his dark flesh.

She expected him to pretend not to be at home, but instead, he switched the gun to his other hand and reached for the chain. He unlocked the door and swung it open. As Sawyer walked in, Sayid walked out, glanced up and down the hall, and then returned inside the apartment, where he shut the door fast and locked it tightly.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

"So," Sawyer drew, slowly, as he affected the old posture of distance and disdain, "You've added Kate to your harem now. Why do you swarthy types get all the pretty girls?"

Sayid blinked, almost lazily, with none of the brimming anger Sawyer had hoped to provoke. It was a disappointment, really, the way the Iraqi trailed off to a bedroom, saying only, "I will leave you two to talk. I certainly hope you do not bring the police in your wake, _James_."

Sawyer had noticed the pack n' play in the living room. It was the first thing he had noticed. He assumed Sayid had knocked Kate up good. For all he knew, they'd been together since the day he was arrested. He didn't know which was worse: the thought of Kate breeding with Sayid, or the thought of her playing house with Jack. He supposed Jack would have been worse.

Sawyer had a far more bitter past with Sayid, far greater reason to hate the man, but somehow discovering Kate living with Sayid didn't sicken him nearly as much as the thought of her living with Jack. The way Sawyer saw it, if she had chosen Jack, that would have been a much clearer rejection of himself. Jack had a past that involved patching people up; Sayid had a past that involved tearing them apart, one little finger at a time. Jack spoke with hasty words and hesitant gestures; Sayid spoke with pointed questions and veiled threats. Sayid knew, like Sawyer, how it felt to walk on a thin sheet of rage. Picking the Iraqi with a touch of bloodlust wasn't quite shutting the door on Sawyer, not the way picking the doc would have been.

Sawyer hadn't come looking for Kate; he'd come looking for Sayid, for any connection to the past, for anyone who would help him. He knew Sayid would give him money if he asked for it; not because Sayid liked Sawyer, but because no matter how much Sayid despised him, he would think of him as a brother in arms.

When Sawyer walked past Kate to peer at the slumbering child, he expected to see light brown skin, and he was ready to make some racial quip. But the child was months older than he expected, and pale, and startlingly blonde. "Well I'll be damned," he murmured. "He's mine, ain't he?"

"What do you want, Sawyer?"

He turned and looked at her with stern but wounded eyes. "When did you know you were pregnant? Why didn't you tell me?"

"_What. Do. You. Want_."

Sawyer came and stood close, his body inches away, his head bent toward hers, his breath warm. He could tell she didn't feel the sexual tension she had felt on the island, the desire to throw him to the ground and saddle him, the desire to give up and _become _him. Her poise was worse than any slap in the face could ever be.

Why had she never considered the possibility that loving him might not mean giving up, might not mean falling back to her natural self? Maybe, just maybe, it would have meant raising him instead.

He stepped back. "I just need a place to stay."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

"That monkey is vaguely demonic in character."

"Whoever made this was strung out on acid."

"There is, however, something mesmerizing in the smooth flow of color."

"Boys," Kate interrupted. "Huck's asleep. He's been asleep for fifteen minutes. You can shut it off."

The pack n' play had been relocated to Kate's bedroom to allow Sawyer the use of the couch. Sayid reached for the remote, but he did not yet turn off the television. He simply switched away from the DVD to PBS, which was once again showing some British comedy, as though the mere fact that the actors possessed English accents somehow made the programming culturally superior to an American sitcom.

For over three decades, Sayid had resisted the vapid lure of the glowing box. There were books to study, wars to fight, women to seek, and shelters to build. Yet now, now there was nothing but time, time upon time, time stretching languidly forth to the end of time, and the glowing box numbed the mind that ached to think of living a life without a future, without a goal, a life with a predetermined end, and yet without an _**end**_.

On that pulsing, medicinal square, a gangly man now slammed a dead parrot against the counter top. Sawyer let out a great guffaw.

"Goodnight," Kate announced emotionlessly, and then, softer and with more feeling as she passed by the Iraqi, she said, "Goodnight, Sayid."

He turned now form the television; he looked at her with eyes that bespoke a sympathy that was turned half inward. He nodded, and then his head turned slowly back to the screen.

On her way to the bedroom, Kate paused to answer the ringing cell phone. Sayid listened, but there was nothing to hear. Kate hung up without a word, and then she shut the cell phone off.

"Jack?" Sayid asked.

Sawyer's neck snapped to the left, his eyes darting first to Sayid and then to Kate. "Jack knows where you are? What? You talk?"

"Goodnight," Kate said again, and the door was shut a second later.

Silence, and then, "How late you usually stay up, Mr. Potato?"

"You realize," Sayid said without shifting either his body or his detached tone, "do you not, that by staying here you put Kate at great risk of discovery, and therefore risk Huck as well?"

"Risk what?" asked Sawyer. "Free room and board for Kate for a few more years until it all ends anyway? And you'd take care of Huck, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"Of course you would. Of course. You take care of everything, don't you?" Sawyer sat back farther into the couch, slouched downward into the cushions, and dug his feet harder against the floor. "You fix it all up nice and good. Put all the little pieces together. And for what?"

"Why did you bother to escape?" Sayid asked tersely, his teeth suddenly clenched, his apathy turned to antagonism. "Why bother to flee prison, when the world all around is a prison, when every life is a sentence to be served?" He took the remote that was in his hand, and he threw it with full force against the television screen. Some part of him felt that if he could just shatter that glass, it would give him a fleeting sense of accomplishing _something_. The remote, naturally, did not shatter the glass. Instead, it clunked limply against the screen and fell impotently to the ground.

Sawyer tried to laugh, but he could not; he fixed his eyes instead on the black plastic of the remote, resting against the dull industrial carpet. Sayid shut his eyes, and Kate opened hers to the stucco ceiling above her bed, while Jack, just ten miles away, stared at the dark, watery depths below and bent his knees.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

Jack sat in his car outside the funeral home; the fingers holding the newspaper clipping trembled slightly; he could feel the ink seeping onto his fingertips like a slow disease. The obituary, which he read now for the fourteenth time, declared prosaically that Michael's body (although the notice used his pseudonym) had been discovered shortly after four a.m. in an apartment on Grand Avenue. A doorman at The Tower had heard loud noises coming from the loft, and when he arrived, Michael's strangled corpse was swinging from a beam.

Jack glanced up at the uncrowded street and across to the funeral home. He gritted his teeth and thought of how, unlike Michael, he could not even succeed at suicide.

When he entered the funeral home, and found the place deserted, he thought he had missed the funeral. Yet, he learned, there had been none, and not a single soul had come to the viewing. Perhaps that was to be expected, given Michael's subterfuge, but the other survivors knew of his pseudonym. Jack had thought at least a few of them might come. He had hoped…if he could just see Kate, one more time, perhaps some small part of the pain would be assuaged.

He wondered, momentarily, if he had managed to meet his death on that bridge, if he had not failed even in that, would his body, too, lay unmourned in a flawless casket? The thought sent him uncapping his bottle of pills. There weren't enough to get him through the afternoon, however, and Kate still wasn't answering her phone. Perhaps she never would.

He walked away from the casket, away from the first survivor to surrender not just the soul, but the body, to despair. Locke too had died, but Jack could not consider that suicide; the hunter had been struggling to reach the island; he had been fighting to live.

Who among them was fighting now?


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One**

Kate wasn't quite sure what had compelled her to answer her cell phone this last time. She was even less sure what had inspired her to agree to meet Jack. Perhaps it was the admonishment in Sayid's eyes as he watched her answer, but more likely it was the jealous commandment in Sawyer's, the smoldering, southern eyes that said, "Don't you dare." It was more likely that an urge to rebel than an urge to appease had sent her to that runway.

But now that she was here, swathed in the unloving coat of evening and sheltered only by the sound of roaring engines, she wanted to turn, to run. Back to what, though? To a child without a future, a child who could never expect to become a man? To two other men from her past, men holed-up in a two-bedroom apartment bickering lightly with idle banter? Men possessed of an old resentment they refused to acknowledge not because of politeness, but because of growing apathy?

Kate had been close to comfortable with Sayid. They had established a routine; they had dug themselves a rut that was the closest thing to a normal life either of them might ever know again. Then Sawyer had come and shattered it all, had come and reminded them of a past of pulsating hope and a future of unmitigated hopelessness.

So she stayed here; she stayed with her feet weighted to the gravel, her eyes drawn to a corner that wasn't quite his eyes. She responded to Jack; from somewhere in the hollow of her soul she formed words, sentences perhaps. It wasn't what he wanted. It wasn't what he had hoped for. She knew that. It was, however, all she could offer.

And when she drove away, drove away and left him gazing up at the airplane overhead, she thought that would be their last contact. She thought that, having learned that she could not satisfy his aching, he would stop calling. Yet he called four times the next day, until she finally turned off the phone.

Then he called Sayid.

Kate knew that Jack was speaking to him; she saw a strange and almost foreign emotion in Sayid's eyes, a sort of flickering anticipation she had not seen since he had tinkered with the radio on the island. But when he hung up, she did not dare to ask the reason for that little play of light at the dark edges of his eyes.

It was Sawyer who asked. "What did the hero have to say?"

"Michael sent him a letter just before he died. Jack received it this morning. Michael apparently decided to accept Widmore's invitation to join the project, but only as a subterfuge. His real goal was to obtain information about how to get back to the island."

Kate now looked at Sayid and caught the cloying hope in his eyes, the hope he was clearly trying to bury, but which kept rising and darting in short bursts across his features. "Did…did he find a way?" she asked.

"Possibly," Sayid replied. "Jack is coming here. We are going to discuss the letter. We are going…we are going to do something."

_Something_, Kate thought. _Something._


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

Jack, Kate, Sayid, and Sawyer stood in a circle, as they had when colluding on the island, even though the apartment sported a couch and two chairs. They fell naturally into the poses now. Having concluded the letter, the four looked from one to another.

Finally, the doctor spoke. "We have a better chance if everyone does it." 

Kate waved her hand in a gesture of refusal. "I don't want to ask this of the other survivors."

"Why not?" Sayid asked. "They do not have long to live anyway."

Kate sighed. "Raising a hope that might not be fulfilled—"

"Or that might," Sayid interrupted. "A hope, Kate, even if unfulfilled, is still a hope."

"Let's call a meeting," Jack suggested. "Like in the old days."

"Well, then, hoss" drew Saywer. "Round up the posse."

They contacted Hurley first, who agreed to host the reunion. In a few days, they were sharing their plan, such as it was, with the other survivors.

Jin sat on the couch next to Sun, intermittently raising his right eye with discomfort to the nearby phallus of a large marbled statue. Every time he did, Sun suppressed a smile behind her slender hand. It was clear the two understood one another once again; their pain hadn't been erased, of course, but it appeared to have been dulled. Next to Sun sat Claire, who was squished knee to knee against Desmond. Rose, exhausted from her chemotherapy, rested upstairs beneath a pink canopy in one of Hurley's sixteen bedrooms, while her husband Bernard reclined in a leather Lazy Boy and waited for someone to speak.

"The reason the island was virtually invisible," Jack explained to the gathered crowd, "is that it is surrounded by a kind of natural time shield. When someone approaches the island, they catch a time wave—that's what Michael called it—and speed ahead briefly in time, to the moment after they have already passed the island. The time shift is just a matter of minutes, and all the passengers realize is that the clocks have appeared to malfunction."

"That's _usually _what happens," Kate emphasized.

"Yes," Jack continued. "Sometimes, though, there's a slight crack between time waves, and on rare occasions a boat or plane can get pressed in that space and be propelled to the island. That's what happened to us. The time shield can also be temporarily disabled with blocking technology, which is how Widmore gets safely to and from the island. His tracking equipment does more than locate the island; it disables the time shield long enough for him to reach the island safely and remain in the present. Penelope," here he looked hesitantly at Desmond, who, having given up hope of ever finding her, now studied his feet – "must not have known how to work the disabling part, which is why she couldn't actually get on the island after she found it—she could only contact the stations and her father's boat." 

Hurley, who had been staring down rather complacently at the blue and white tiles that clashed remarkably with his hodge podge of randomly selected fancy furniture, now raised his eyes. He didn't even have to say, "Dude?"

"Yeah," Jack said. "It sounds crazy, but…"

Hurley shrugged his large shoulders. "What sounds crazy anymore?"

"So..." murmured Claire, allowing a squirming Aaron to escape from her arms to Desmond's, "Michael learned how to block the time shield?"

Jack looked away with the old weariness he had so often exhibited on the island; that look of half-defeat. "Unfortunately, Michael couldn't find out how Widmore does that or secure the equipment. But he did find out a lot about the time waves. There aren't just future time waves, though that's how most of them work. There are also past time waves. Michael was able to copy for us a page containing information on the precise location of the past time waves – it tells us where and when to hit them."

Jack paused as the other survivors assimilated this information. Sayid interrupted the explanation only long enough to reflect on Michael's sacrifice. "Widmore must have suspected Michael was not to be trusted. We believe he had Michael killed, although he made it look like a suicide. Michael died honorably. He died trying to save the world."

Some of the survivors nodded, as though to acknowledge Michael's penance, but Hurley looked away at the golden and red tapestry that hung from a far wall in the great house, a house so filled with things and yet so empty.

"Most of the time waves Michael found go back centuries," Jack continued. "But there's one that will take us back to the day of the crash. We have to fly directly into it, in seven days, at a specific time. Hurley has a private jet. We could do this."

"Time travel?" Bernard asked. "You're talking about time travel? So, what, will we meet ourselves?"

"Not according to Michael," said Sayid. "According to him, if we enter a past time wave that covers a span of history when we were actually alive, we will simply travel back to ourselves. We will not be distinct persons. That is, we will all return to the moment of the crash. We will be precisely what we were on that day: ourselves, in that moment. It will be rather like reliving our lives."

"But I wasn't on the plane, brother," said Desmond. "If I'm on Hurley's jet, will it mess things up?"

Sayid shook his head. "No. Presumably you will return to the hatch, since that is where you actually were at that moment."

"Yet…" Sun asked tentatively, "if we caught a time wave that took us back a hundred years, what would happen? We could not simply return to ourselves. We did not yet exist."

"Then," explained Jack, "our time travel experience would be more like what you normally see in science-fiction movies. We'd just go back as we are right now. If we go to that day we crashed, though - " here he stabbed the air with his finger - "we'll be just like we were back then."

"I don't get it," said Bernard. He absently rubbed his grizzled, gray cheek. "So what, we go back, crash again, live it all over again, but we remember all this—remember what's going to happen—and we change the future?"

"The question is, can we change it?" Sawyer nodded toward Sayid. "You're the science geek, do you really believe it's possible?"

Sayid sighed heavily. "Can we even ask that question anymore, after what we have been through? Certainly it is possible. Yet it is it likely? I cannot guess what will happen. Some who speculate on time travel believe that you can change the future, but, when you do, a parallel universe is born, so that both futures exist simultaneously. Others believe that even if you could successfully travel back in time, you would somehow be prevented from changing the future, because the future has already occurred and is therefore unalterable. You might attempt to change it, but, at the last minute, you would, so to speak, slip on a banana peel."

"But after we crash, we'll remember everything that happened?" Hurley asked, his voice rising with irrepressible excitement. "And everyone else will be there too? Everyone who was on the island when we crashed? They'll be alive?"

Sayid's voice was more restrained than Hurley's, but there was undeniable, unidentifiable emotion somewhere just beneath its surface. "Yes," he answered. "Everyone else we knew will be there, alive, and real. Whether we remember anything that happened or not, however, is another matter entirely, and it is part of the gamble. "

"Michael said that, according to what he read, there's a chance we may not remember at all," explained Jack. "But some of us might, so the more of us who go back, the better our chances. If any of us does remember, Michael said it won't likely happen all at once. It'll come in bits and pieces. It'll be a little garbled and confused. Like flashes."

"Flashes?" asked Claire with wide eyes. She turned to Desmond, whose jaw seemed to tighten.

Desmond lowered his eyelids briefly. When he opened them again, he looked directly at Sayid. "I'm sorry, brother, but I think we've already done this. I think we went back in time, maybe more than once. And every time we slipped on the banana peel. We didn't change the future. We didn't change a damn thing."


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

Sayid flipped frantically to a photocopied sheet attached to Michael's letter. Desmond had just explained his flashes. If the survivors had indeed traveled back repeatedly in time in an attempt to save the world, that would explain Desmond's multiple, differing visions of Charlie's death. It now seemed improbable that they could stop Widmore by merely going back to themselves; they had probably tried and failed continually. The memories had never been complete enough to remind them to change the future. Perhaps there was another way. 

"That was the time wave Michael suggested, but there were a dozen others." Sayid examined the list, his dark hand against the white sheet, a single index finger trailing across each closely spaced row.

Jack leaned over the Iraqi's shoulder. "There's one that opens to just before Danielle's boat crashed," he said excitedly. "We could go back then! We could meet her! Warn her about the Others, about Widmore; we could wait for him to arrive—we know he came to the island twice in those seventeen years, we just don't know when. We could—"

"Sherlock, you forgettin' something?"

Jack's eyes rose to Sawyer's frame, which leaned casually against one of the random pillars inserted to span from Hurley's living room floor to his high, muted pink ceiling, a pillar that appeared to support nothing. The doctor opened his mouth slightly.

"Recall, Jack, that if we travel to a time in which we already existed," explained Sayid, "we will simply return to ourselves. We will not even be on that island; we would, instead, be where we were that day, with, perhaps, some memory of our future experiences. How much memory, we cannot guess."

Jack shook his head in self-admonishment.

"I, for instance," concluded Sayid, "would find myself at Cairo University once again."

"That wouldn't be so bad," Sawyer said. "Going to college and losing your virginity all over again." One side of his lower lip curled into a smirk. "Oh, wait, that didn't happen until the island."

Sayid predictably ignored him, though he did grow noticeably tense. Kate shot Sawyer a look of disgust, and the southerner replied "What?" with his eyes, although he looked away quickly enough to reveal his faint sense of guilt, as though perhaps he had not realized, at first, how near his idle joke had aimed at past pain.

"It wouldn't be so bad for me either," muttered Hurley. "I'd still think my dad was cool. It would be before…before everything."

"I wouldn't have met Rose yet," said Bernard. "I'd have a chance to fall in love all over again."

"Yes, we could go back to ourselves then," Sayid said. "Scattered all over the world, probably remembering little, and accomplishing what, precisely?"

"A bank robbery," Kate mumbled, and then, lifting one eye to find in Sawyer's gaze an echo of her own shame, "a few dozen cons."

"Yeah," Sawyer spat. "What? Save the world? We couldn't even save ourselves."

"What if" – the sound of Sun's voice, so unusually firm in its softness, startled the others for a moment, until they had focused on her with careful attention. "What if we went back to a time before we were born? It would be…_traditional_…time travel then? We would go to that island, at the age we are now? We would remember everything?"

Sayid shrugged, but there was an excitement beginning to steal itself into his voice. "Yes, presumably we would. Yet what then could we do? The nearest time wave before any of us was born opens to just before the Black Rock crashed on the island. It would be many years before Charles Widmore's father discovered the island, before Widmore himself channeled its energy to create the explosion that will destroy the world. How can we disable a technological system that has not yet been invented?"

Sun placed her palms flat against her legs. She blinked and looked down for a moment. Was it a gesture of defeat, or thought?

"What if…" Jin said from beside her, still slow and hesitant in his speech, though he had spoken English for some time now. "What if we wrote the truth down for ourselves to discover later? We could leave the book buried. Leave signs to it…warn ourselves to stop Widmore."

"And, what, just live on the island until we die?" Sawyer asked.

Sun jerked her head upward. "How is that different from living here until we die?" she challenged.

"Well, Sunflower, I reckon' it's a bit more uncomfortable."

"At least we might achieve something," Sayid insisted. "If the book survives the intervening years, and if we discover it when we crash again in the future…that is, in our past … "

Hurley, his arms crossed and resting on his belly snorted. "Crazy." Then he tilted his head a little. "You know, though, it could work. Maybe."

"Sayid," Jack said, his eyes for once deadly sober, his voice soft and possessed of a self-assurance it had never quite held on the island, "you told me when we confronted the Others that you were willing to sacrifice yourself, but only if you knew there was a chance of rescue. If we take this risk now, if we go that far back in time, we can't know whether there is any chance of saving the world. Are you still willing to risk your life?"

"I have nothing to lose anymore, Jack," he said. "Not even my life. Our days are numbered whether we attempt this or not. Certainly I am willing."

"And what about everyone else?" Jack asked. "The more who go, the greater the chance that at least one of us will survive to bury the book." His head turned from face to nodding face.

When he reached Claire, she hesitated. "What about Aaron? What about Huck?"

"I'll leave Huck with my father," Kate answered. "He said he'd take him. It's a better life than running from the law, anyway."

"You have a responsibility to Aaron," Sayid said softly. "None of us would blame you if you did not choose to accompany us."

A sudden and random fire of assertiveness flashed in Claire's usually mild eyes. "I want to be a part of this. Yes, I have a responsibility to Aaron, but that responsibility is to build a better world for him. If you fail, it won't be long until this world doesn't exist anymore. I recently made some friends in Australia. I trust them. They're childless. They've hinted they'd be willing to adopt Aaron…" Claire looked across at Sayid with determination. "I want to come."

Jack opened his mouth as though to contradict her, but Sayid silenced him with a warning look. Instead of advising Claire not to come, therefore, Jack turned to Sawyer. "That just leaves you."

The southerner didn't speak. The rest of the survivors waited patiently. Finally, he rolled his eyes. "Of course I'm in. What the hell else is there for me to do?"

Hurley clapped his great hands together. "Then I'll fuel up the jet." He laughed. "But we have to have one last party first, right, dudes?"

Finally, Hurley had a genuine cause to party. Tonight, he would not be filling his mansion with vapid joy and manufactured comradery. Here, at last, was something worth celebrating: a chance as slender as a thread, but a chance nonetheless.


	24. Chapter 24

_**Note:**__ Sorry to disappoint those who wanted more interaction between specific characters, but this has stretched to 23 chapters already, and it's time to wrap up the story and see where our characters ended up…I hope you've enjoyed the journey and I have truly appreciated all of the comments and encouragement! _

**Epilogue**

"Everyone's fine," Hurley announced with joy into the walkie talkie. "Me, Sawyer, Juliet, Sayid, Jin, Bernard...we're all... "

"Wait," came Jack's voice with disbelief. "Bernard and Jin and Sayid, they're with you?"

"Yeah dude. I told you. I saved them all."

Jack's voice could barely be heard over the shouts of joy from behind him. "Hey," he said with relief, "stay where you are. We're almost up to the tower. You'll be safer there."

It would be difficult, Sayid thought, simply to remain on the beach waiting expectantly for Jack to succeed in his plan to contact Naomi's boat. Therefore he and Jin decided to preoccupy themselves with the task of gathering fruit for the evening meal. Relaxed now in the aftermath of the fight with the Others, Sayid was not at the height of alert when he stepped into the jungle, and he did not see the figure slide quickly from behind a tree until the man had confronted him. For a brief, confused moment, Sayid thought a mirror had been thrown up before his face, because he was gazing directly into his own eyes.

When he took in the man's entire countenance, however, Sayid saw that his skin was a much lighter shade of brown than his own, and although the figure possessed a nose almost identical in shape and size to Sayid's, his lips were less full and obviously more inclined to smile. In fact, the man was smiling now.

"Don't shoot," he insisted, from behind a great grin. "I come in peace." The man laughed. "I'm not an alien, though." The man certainly did not possess an Iraqi accent, but Sayid could not place his accent either. It was not quite American, not quite European…there even seemed to be within it a hint of African.

Sayid's hand stiffened around his rifle. One finger reached cautiously for the trigger. From behind the light brown man a woman emerged, also smiling, and Sayid was certain she had Kate's freckles, in almost the same placement.

Sayid's eyes flitted from one to the other as he attempted to assess the greater threat. Jin, who had drawn up close beside him, nodded toward the woman, as though to say he would eliminate her if needed. At least, Sayid thought, the surprise couple appeared to be without firearms, although there was a bulge beneath each shirt—knives, perhaps? The blade would be no match for guns.

Yet just as that comforting thought rose to Sayid's mind, six more people emerged from the trees and surrounded Sayid and Jin in a semicircle. Some had dark skin, some light; their ethnicities were difficult to discern, but each had at least one faintly familiar feature—Claire's mouth, Sawyer's eyes, Hurley's lips, Jack's posture, Jin's cheeks, Desmond's hair. Sayid and Jin could do no more than wait for the spokesman to say something more.

"We've been watching you," the man said. "We've been watching you since you crashed, but we didn't dare interfere too soon. We're still not quite sure how it all works. We were afraid if we meddled too soon, we'd change your history too much, mess things up so they couldn't ever be fixed. We decided to wait until we got as close as we could to your last days on the island…and then we'd risk changing things."

"But now," said the woman from beside him, the one with Kate's freckles, "now we have to tell you, before Widmore gets here and it's too late."

"Widmore? Too late for what?" Sayid hissed, his muscles tense. His hope for rescue, which had just been lit on fire by Jack's assurance that they were nearing the tower, was beginning to flicker and fade.

The man smiled again. It was strange for Sayid to see that broad, Sawyer-like grin stretching out beneath his own eyes and nose. "To save the world," the man said. "The rest of us are picking up your friends at the tower, before they contact the boat. We'll show you the book that explains everything. There's even photos of you and him" – he nodded to Sayid and Jin as he spoke - "and everyone else at the Last Party in Hurley's palace. Those photos will prove to you that you really wrote it."

"The book?" Jin repeated, with a confusion no less profound than Sayid's.

Sayid was hearing every word, but he wasn't quite understanding. His initial inclination was to assume these were Others who were playing yet more mind games, but there was nothing dishonest in their eyes or voices. Either his perception was failing him or they were telling the truth. "How could we never have perceived your presence before now?"

"We grew up on this island," explained the man. "We know it intimately, and we know how to be quiet, more quiet even than those things Widmore built."

Sayid felt matters spiraling out of his control, beyond the far reaches of his comprehension. "The things Widmore…what things…who-"

"Don't worry," the man interrupted him. "We'll explain everything. It's time to stop Widmore and save the world." The man, who could not have been more than ten years younger than Sayid, extended his hand toward the Iraqi. "What do you say, great, great grandpa?"

And from the semi-circle surrounding them, an enormous laughter erupted, a laughter not of insanity or ridicule, but of hope and triumph.

**THE END**


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